Kobe to Nara

Saturday 13th February

When I remember yesterday and Nara in the years to come I shall first of all remember the biting cold and the fairly inadequate clothing we all wore. I had on a turtle neck T shirt under a sweater with my solid Gore Tex wind breaker on top....not enough. I shivered through most of the day except on the couple of occasions when we returned to the bus or just once when George and I found a tea room and sat in there next to old portable oil heaters....the sort banned years ago by the Canadian Government but thanks to Japanese benevolence we were able to fully appreciate yesterday.

The trouble with damp penetrating cold is that it's distracting. We were distracted from our gorgeous surroundings because even in the most stunning of Buddhist temples, which they were, the wind blows through and even the largest wooden Buddha in the world, which one was, can't exert enough power to warm you.

I find the Buddhist philosophy very appealing and now have a collection of four Buddhas: one from India (which my father's, bought many years ago in Karachi), one tiny china one which I bought in a Hong Kong market last year for about ten dollars, ( the seller swore was Ming dynasty) and which sits on our desk shelf (with the soapstone elephant's head you gave me Dia) and a green 'jade' (probaby glass) fat smiling one which I found in Shanghai. In Nara I bought a tiny glassed in (or "plasticked"in) engraved one for a few hundred yen (about $4.00). I am not a big spender even for a new religion...

The scenery yesterday was stunning, although we were hard put to enjoy it. We were in the hills and surrounded by Mediterranean pines and as always rocks and water. All three shrines were built in the Chinese pagoda style, two were Buddhist and one Shinto which is the official religion of Japan. There is always an image of a Buddha in a Buddhist shrine but in Shinto it is the spirits who are there in the shrine so you see no images. It is a little strange to watch the worshippers bowing and praying to empty spaces....although on second thoughts I suppose Christians often do the same in Protestant churches....Shinto believers also pray as you may know to the spirits of their Ancestors.

Japanese women are bubbly and caring and enormously helpful. They will follow you away from their desks and shop counters to make sure you find your way, and they will insist to the tiniest detail that you fully understand the message they are trying to convey. In a tourist office I entered today to find out where the nearest ATM was I was loaded with Guide books and maps of Kobe (which we didn't need) before being allowed to leave. In the restaurant where we had lunch, while atempting to explain to George that his draft beer would take some minutes to produce, one ingenious young woman put an egg timer on the table , turned it upside down and gestured that the beer would appear when the sand had run through! And it did.

I offered on a number of occasions to take photos of groups and families and they were so delighted that a 'foreigner' had done it. I restrained myself from asking if I could take one with my own camera too. Once in Nara when two little boys were posing for their mother with one of the hundreds of deer who wander around the temples, I asked mum if she would take one for me with my camera and she happily obliged. I hope to post it on the blog.

Later: 4.45 pm our time.

We have had a wonderful day revisiting old haunts in Kobe. The sun was shining today and the wind had dropped so, although it was cold, it didn't penetrate quite so much. I wore a thermal top which made a difference too.

We left the ship shortly after breakfast and took the Port Liner train into town. We then started walking up towards the Cafe de Paris where George had enjoyed a beer last year and the French Moroccan restaurant owner had made us welcome and given us his card. Across the road I had bought two beautiful old silk and brocade Kimono jackets for the equivalent of $5.00 each...yes five dollars~ I wanted to return to the same shop and have another look. Needless to say it had disappeared, in fact the whole block had been bulldozed! So, as it was too early for beer in the Cafe de Paris which was still there, we sat in a lovely Starbucks coffee house and had the best cup of coffee we've had for some time. The house had originally been owned by an American and it stood in the down town area of Kobe. It was destroyed in the 1995 Kobe earthquake when thousands (5,000) were killed. So the house was rebuilt, in the European area, brick by brick and restored to the same style. It was later bought by Starbucks and is a beautiful and comfortable place to relax.

From there we wandered up towards the Cable Car station. This is a long up hillclimb but we took our time as we had done last year and were rewarded by a marvellous, slow ride to the top of the mountain overlooking Kobe. The views are panoramic and hard to capture on camera but I tried! Last year it was spring and all the blossom was out: it is colder and the fruit trees are bare now at this height but beautiful nonetheless.

We suddenly realised that we had very little money between us and we had planned to have lunch at the top. Fortunately for us the restaurant accepted Visa, (it is quite uncommon in Japan for credit cards to be accepted) so we were able to enjoy a wonderful cold Japanese buffet with delicious hot soup. We had absolutely no idea what we were eating half the time....we decided we were swallowing jellied eels at one point....but it was all delicious. All of this after the egg timer!

The cable car is a treat. You go up very slowly and can take in the city from different angles. We could even see the Explorer in the distance....about the size of a matchbox. We took it both ways although we said today, and remembered saying the same thing last year, 'we should have walked down.' Too late, we had bought a return ticket.

Hardly anyone speaks English in Japan unless you are in an International Hotel, so you have to make yourself understood somehow. We had some wonderful conversations using only our hands...and faces! Someone might manage to ask in broken English or by gesture "where do you come from?" and when you answer 'Canada' they say "Ah so....Olympics, Vancouver".

We walked all the way back down town to the Port Liner station and returned to the ship. George bought me some chocolates in one of the terminal shops for Valentines Day....I'm not sure he has ever done that before! I was all ready to embarrass him by giving him a card which I bought before leaving home but that little guilt trip will fall flat on its face! Serves me right.

7.45 pm
We are preparing to leave Japan; the ship`s horn has sounded three times, the drummers who welcomed us in Yokohama are thudding us a farewell and I for one am sad to be leaving. The people are warm and friendly and the country is beautiful. I have some photos to prove my point if i ever work out how I managed to put them on last time with my new connection.

Ah we are moving! The lights of Kobe are passing our doors ever so slowly and up in the hills, at about the level of the cable station, is the outline of a sailing ship. It looks to be floating in the darkness. Twinkling lights are spread along the length of the waterfront and reflect across the water as we swish by.....Goodbye Japan.